As expected, French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen has not given his support to either candidate for the presidential runoff on Sunday. The man who took the nation and the world by surprise when he made it through to the second round in the last election five years ago, only made it to fourth position this time

In his widely anticipated speech before the second round, Le Pen called on supporters to abstain from voting on May 6th, and instead to turn out en masse in the June legislative ballot. He said it would be dangerous to cast a protest vote against Nicolas Sarkozy by chosing Socialist candidate Segolene Royal, and equally unreasonable to give ballots to a man who continues to consider the Front National an extremist party.

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